Mapping research trends on classified information using bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The rising incidence of information leakages and the concomitant demand for safeguarding classified information (CI) have stimulated research efforts around the world on information security. Despite the broad interdisciplinary acceptance of CI, the field receives low researcher attention. Therefore, understanding CI has become necessary in the drive towards information safety. In this study, we aimed to appraise the world-wide research developments in CI domain centred on journals productivities, the leading authors, author keywords, associated countries and research institutions. Data on 458 journal articles, published between 1968-2019, were extracted from the Scopus database. Results of the bibliometric analysis show that since 2012 the number of publications been steadily increasing to date. Researchers from the US contributed over 28% of the global publications on CI. In light of the apparent limitation of drawing data from a single database, we suggest that future studies should compare the research outputs of CI using many databases such as Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science.